Does Jenova Have Control Over Sephiroth’s Mind? Questions & Quotes on the Matter.

Is Sephiroth a puppet of Jenova? Does she exert control and influence over his vulnerable, unaware mind? A question for the ages, and a big point of contention for many. Despite the fact that the answer is quite blatantly and decisively no. She does not, and today I’ll be bringing some quotes detailing as such.

To quickly summarise:

Sephiroth is an experimental SOLDIER created by having cells from the alien shapeshifer Jenova infused into him while he was still in the womb. He grows up with a sense of disconnect to normal humans, and feeling some distant presence pulling at his mind. As an adult, he eventually makes contact with Jenova at the Nibelheim Reactor. She begins mentally attacking him and this, alongside a number of other stress factors, causes him to become insane. Like in a proper, clinical state of psychological madness. There’s a skirmish at the reactor, which results in Cloud throwing him into the Lifestream. Sephiroth’s half-dead body flows through the Lifestream, until it eventually reaches the Northern Crater and becomes encased in materia crystals. The actual Sephiroth is in a state of suspended death, sending his mind through the Lifestream to control Jenova and those possessing her shapeshifting cells. Whenever we see Sephiroth in physical space during the game, it’s Sephiroth projecting his will & image onto a piece of Jenova’s body or one of the black-robed cultists.

The infamously bad original translation of FFVII termed these men in black as “Sephiroth clones”, but they’re actually just people who were experimented on in Jenova Project S after his death at Nibelheim. Once Jenova and her kin congregate at the Northern Crater for the Reunion, Sephiroth turns on them, assimilating their cells and spirit energy to speed up his body’s regeneration process. From this point on Sephiroth, Jenova and the robed men are not seen in the story again until the very end where the fully revived body of Sephiroth takes part in the final battle.

Pertinent to this, the big debate which somehow lingers to this day is about who’s actually in control, Sephiroth or Jenova. But it is Sephiroth, as confirmed by Hojo, Cloud, the Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega and The Maiden Who Travels the Planet, among other sources.

If his will and personality are still in charge, why is he so clearly different before and after Nibelheim?

His personality is different post-Nibelheim because his mental faculties are not all there. Man’s a bit cuckoo. Sephiroth has suffered personality collapse and become clinically insane, constantly contradicting himself and muttering things that make sense to nobody other than his own fractured mind. This is still the real, main, actual, genuine, original Sephiroth however, he’s just a bit broken. It’s not Jenova literally replacing his mind and puppeting him like many suggest, he’s just mentally unwell. He has adopted some part of Jenova’s nature as a means to supplement his lost human identity and gain access to her Reunion for his own ends, but fundamentally Sephiroth is manipulating Jenova for his resurrection scheme and not the other way around. He’s got his own insanity-fuelled goal in mind and is utilising Jenova and the Black Robes as just a part in his play.

Hojo states as much at the North Crater, and this is reiterated numerous times in complementary material such as the Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega.

• Hojo (Final Fantasy VII): “Jenova’s Reunion and Sephiroth’s will…I’m not wild about the failure part, but the Jenova Reunion Theory has now been proven. You see, even if Jenova’s body is dismembered, it will eventually become one again. That’s what is meant by Jenova’s Reunion. I have been waiting for the Reunion to start. Five years have passed, and now the Clones have begun to return. I thought the clones would begin to gather at Midgar where Jenova is stored. But my predictions were not entirely correct. Jenova itself began to move away from the Shinra Building. But being a genius that I am, I soon figured it out. You see it was all Sephiroth’s doing. Sephiroth is not just content to diffuse his will into the Lifestream; he wants to manipulate the Clones himself.”
• The Maiden Who Travels the Planet: “The pale black and silver white man, who was once a hero, had taken over the will of the ‘disaster that fell from the skies’, Jenova, and was in a state of madness.”
• Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega (page 55): “Sephiroth’s will began to control not only his brother-like copies, but also his mother Jenova.”
• Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega (page 53): “It seems that Jenova’s will has consumed Sephiroth’s human heart, but Sephiroth’s will has actually taken control of Jenova…Sephiroth’s voice surpasses that of his ‘mother’ Jenova and calls out to the cells of his copies.”
• Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega (page 211): “Reunion is the ability of Jenova, but the orders she gives to the Sephiroth Copies are given with Sephiroth as their master.”
• Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega (page 55): “Although Aerith’s life was ended, Jenova (in the form of Sephiroth) was unable to stop the Holy Prayer. However, Sephiroth, who was in the North Crater, continued to suppress the activation of Holy with the sheer force of his will until the final battle.”

The above quotes clearly illustrate Sephiroth’s force of will to be far greater than Jenova’s.

Was it proximity to Jenova that made Sephiroth go insane? It only took a week of exposure for him to turn evil.

There are alien and human elements to Sephiroth’s mental collapse. Both are equally as important.

Final Fantasy VII is a cosmic horror story, where Sephiroth has heard the call of Cthulhu. Even in the original you see that Sephiroth becomes disturbed only after getting close to Jenova’s chamber. He goes back to the Nibel Manor, and he just reads and he reads and he reads like a man possessed, which is totally at home in stories about contact with any Lovecraftian deity.

But within that there’s also the element where Sephiroth has fallen into mental insanity from a human perspective, by spending a week straight reading complex scientific papers without food or sleep. Anyone’s mind would break after that. When he emerges he’s got deep bags under his eyes, and is delirious enough from the multi-front assault of mental overstimulation, overtiredness and the cosmic call, to accept that Jenova is his family and he is the scorned Cetran heir. I genuinely believe that if Sephiroth was able to pull himself away from the basement and return to the inn to rest and refresh himself each night, Nibelheim may have never been burned. That’s the big part of his tragedy, Sephiroth was a good man inside of it all.

If Jenova has affected Sephiroth’s mind, then is there any functional difference between whoever’s in charge or are they hybridized?

It is different because the official word says it’s different.

• Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega (page 213): “Despite boasting legendary strength, he lived as an ordinary human up until learning the secret behind his birth five years ago. At that point, he began to walk a different path from humans. He didn’t fall under Jenova’s sway but rather seized control and assumed command over her actions. This development gives us a sense of the extraordinary strength the lifeform known as Sephiroth possesses.”

Does Sephiroth’s plan differ from Jenova’s plan in any meaningful capacity?

Initially Jenova lies to Sephiroth, convincing him that they’re both disgraced Cetra and compelling him to seek out the Promised Land in order to reclaim the planet from the humans. Jenova’s true goal buried within that suggestion, or what we know if it, is to assimilate every life form on the planet, then absorb its Lifestream and depart into the universe seeking her next prey planet. Perhaps she hitches a ride on a husk of the world like a meteor, perhaps she attaches herself to the Omega Weapon as it evacuates.

Sephiroth’s goal, however, is to rule Gaia. Tseng realises at the Temple of the Ancients that their belief he had reappeared to pursue the Promised Land was incorrect or outdated. Sephiroth seeks dominion over all life on the planet. The Ultimania Omega draws specific attention to this difference.

• Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega (page 55): “Through Jenova, who has taken on the appearance of himself, Sephiroth speaks of his terrifying ambitions. He positions himself as more than an Ancient, and declares that he will become a god, which is a clear difference from five years ago.”
• Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII): “I am the chosen one. I have been chosen to rule this planet.”
• Sephiroth (Rebirth): “[Their lives] were mine by right. This planet too, for I have been chosen.”
• Cloud (Rebirth): “He wants to reclaim his birthright, and rule over the planet with Jenova at his side.”
• On the Way to a Smile: Case of Lifestream (Black): “If he allowed himself be taken into the current, the being he once was would soon disseminate and disappear amongst the spirit energy cycling around the planet. The man thought this unacceptable. The planet was there to be ruled. To become a part of that system would be nothing short of defeat.”

This ambition comes from two places. First is his desire for self-definition. Sephiroth understood his place in the world as mankind’s greatest hero. When that title is stripped away from him at the Mt Nibel reactor, Sephiroth instead reassigns himself as the hero of the Cetra, who will save the planet from the humans that stole it. But upon discovering that Jenova being Cetran was a lie as well, Sephiroth decides he needs to seek a more eternal identity.

The humans have betrayed him and Jenova, he’s learned, only wants to manipulate him. Weary of it all, Sephiroth is looking to elevate himself above any and all potential threats. He wants to merge with the Lifestream and become God, seeking to reach a place of power and security where no one else can infringe upon his existence ever again.

• Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII): “By merging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence. Melding with the Planet… I will cease to exist as I am now… Only to be reborn as a ‘God’ to rule over every soul.”
• Safer-Sephiroth (dummied battle intro): “It’s over. Everyone, everything. It’s all over…Now everything will begin with me!!”

The second component is that he’s developed a saviour complex as some corrupt transformation of his original heroic nature. By ruling over the cycle of souls, Sephiroth wishes to protect and preserve the planet as he sees fit. This is at odds with Jenova’s desire to consume the Lifestream and set sail for her next planet.

• Sephiroth (Remake): “Our beloved planet is dying. Slowly. Painfully. Can you bear to see the planet suffer, Cloud?”
• Aerith (Remake): “He’d tell you that he only cares about the planet. That he’d do everything in his power to protect and preserve it.”
• Cloud (Rebirth): “He wants to save the planet. It’s not what he’s doing, but how. He doesn’t care if everyone dies in the process.”
• Sephiroth (Rebirth): “The Reunion. When spite and pain are harvested to feed the planet.”

It’s only after Sephiroth’s memories and personality are erased with his defeat at the end of FFVII that Jenova is finally able to assimilate Sephiroth’s mind, which is why in Advent Children he does want to corrupt and ingest the Lifestream, then pilot Gaia as a vessel with which to infect more planets. At that point, it’s not really Sephiroth anymore. It’s Jenova most powerful puppet yet.

• On the Way to a Smile: Case of Lifestream (Black): “When the Lifestream erupted from the earth, he let the planet has all those memories that no longer held any meaning. Memories of his boyhood, of his few-and-far-between friends, of battles he fought before knowing his true self, of his life in those bygone days – he let them join the rushing torrent and dash themselves against Meteor.”
• On the Way to a Smile: Case of Lifestream (Black): “He tried to send his spirit above to walk the surface, but nothing came of it. The planet had consumed the memories of his own form, leaving him with no image on which to anchor his consciousness.”

Sephiroth’s ambition during the point at which he has control is to become a ruler that can protect Gaia in some corrupted heroic way. Jenova’s will is to just consume it and return to space so that she can propagate her cells throughout the galaxy, which manifests in AC Sephiroth because his spirit is an empty shell at that point.

• Sephiroth (Advent Children): “The last thoughts of Geostigma are dead. Those remnants will girdle the Lifestream. Choking it, corroding it. What I want Cloud, is to sail the darkness of the cosmos with this planet as my vessel. Just as my mother did long ago. Then one day we’ll find a new planet, and on its soil we’ll create a shining future. [What happens to this planet is] up to you, Cloud.”

Was Sephiroth subject to Jenova’s Reunion like the other puppets?

At that initial point of contact the Reunion had a clearly visible effect on him, yes. The man became obsessed. But in the original Final Fantasy VII storyline, that’s really the only point at which Sephiroth seems to care about Jenova all that much. He still refers to her as “mother” a couple of times, yet this only extends so far, since he has little resistance toward degrading her as a mere part in his play. Jenova is just another tool in his arsenal with which to go harass and pester Cloud Strife. After falling into the Lifestream and gaining all its knowledge, he realises she wasn’t a Cetra and so wrestles control to where she has succumbed to his will.

• Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII): “I’m far superior to the Ancients. I became a traveler of the Lifestream and gained the knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients. I also gained the knowledge and wisdom of those after the extinction of the Ancients. And soon, I will create the future.”

Later in the game there’s a point where Hojo says he expected the Reunion Theory to result in the numbered guys all gravitating toward the main body of Jenova at Shinra HQ, but that he was surprised to see Jenova itself began heading to the North Crater where Sephiroth is. Sephiroth overrode Jenova’s will to redirect the Reunion toward himself, and is commandeering the shapeshifter as a puppet with which to manifest into the physical world and pursue the Black Materia for his eventual resurrection

• Hojo (Final Fantasy VII): “I have been waiting for the Reunion to start. Five years have passed, and now the Clones have begun to return. I thought the clones would begin to gather at Midgar where Jenova is stored. But my predictions were not entirely correct. Jenova itself began to move away from the Shinra Building. But being a genius that I am, I soon figured it out. You see it was all Sephiroth’s doing. Sephiroth is not just content to diffuse his will into the Lifestream; he wants to manipulate the Clones himself.”
• Final Fantasy VII Ultimania Omega (page 55): “Jenova (in the form of Sephiroth) was supposed to have crossed Mount Nibel and headed north, but it headed south toward the Temple of the Ancients. It first followed the Reunion instincts and headed north toward the final destination, but along the way received an order from the main body to bring back the Black Materia.”

Sephiroth was able to interfere with the Reunion impulse to send Jenova on a detour all the way to the southern reaches of the world. Then once Jenova and the black-robed men do eventually reach the Northern Crater the Reunion is considered complete, and Sephiroth stops puppeting them to focus on regenerating his own body instead. All these actors effectively disappear from this point on, only resurfacing at the very end when Sephiroth’s original body has been successfully revived and he descends into the heart of the planet for his climactic battle against Cloud and Holy.

• Jenova in the form of Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII): “You’re right. This is the end of this body’s usefulness.Our purpose is to deliver the Black Materia to our master.”

Do the personality takeovers of Cloud, Roche and the other Black Robes align to Sephiroth, or is that similarity because Jenova has taken over him in the first place?

They’re overwritten by Sephiroth because he’s the one truly exerting control over Jenova and the Black Robes.

• Hojo (Final Fantasy VII): “You see it was all Sephiroth’s doing. Sephiroth is not just content to diffuse his will into the Lifestream; he wants to manipulate the Clones himself.”
• Cloud (Final Fantasy VII): “I wasn’t pursuing Sephiroth. I was being summoned by Sephiroth. All the anger and hatred I bore him, made it impossible for me to ever forget him.”

Hope this helps.